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Noob Mistakes
The following is an attempt to list mistakes new players often make, with explanations and fixes. Mistake the First: Playing only fighters that are too cheap Let's have a look at the card Guest. Guest is a card that, when played, generates a yellow icon. At no cost, a lot of new players play this card to save up on yellows to play something else. This is flawed reasoning. Guest may generate icons early-game, but late-game, it is useless. As a 200/100, it dies to practically everything, kills nothing, and forces you to wait another turn before you can play something else. Such cards are known as dead draws, and that's what most cheap cards are after the fire few turns. You want to play icon-generators early. Hypergeometric Distribution, a mathematical formula you can use to figure out the probability of a card appearing in your hand within a certain number of turns, tells us that, if you have 4 guests in a deck, you have a 55% '''chance of drawing at least one in your opening hand (60% if you go second). Considering Guest is only good in the first few turns, that is a very bad deal. And before you say "That means at least one, I could sometimes have two or three in my hand!", You have an '''86% chance of drawing either 1 or 0 Guests in your opening hand. It's not worth it. Due to Guest dying in one hit from anything, it's a better idea to instead play a big card, such as TeeVee. If you can't cast TeeVee early game, sacrifice it for icons, and you'll get almost the same amount of icons as a guest would generate before dying. The difference, however, is that TeeVee is most certainly not a dead draw early-game. Cards such as Guest - cheap cards that can generate icons - only become worth it if they are not dead draws late-game. For reference, here are the top three icon generators in each colour. A deck typically plays 0-7 of these, but experiment with how many you need: Yellow * [[Toy Truck|'Toy Truck']]:' Generates a card which can be sacrificed for yellow, will usually destroy anything that attacks it. * [[Fried Acolyte|'Fried Acolyte]]:' Generates double yellow, is tanky. * [[PEEPSTERS|'PEEPSTERS]]:''' Generates a card which can be sacrificed for yellow, or played to generate yellow, is absurdly annoying to deal with late-game. '''Green * Eye of Overseer: Generates 2 green when played, single-handedly stops armies, is tanky on its own, is one of the best cards in green. * Necromantic Acolyte: Creates double green, is tanky, is self-defending. * ROBLOX: Generates 3 green for a single white. Red * [[Split Ego|'Split Ego']]:' Generates 3 red for free. * [[Infernal Acolyte|'Infernal Acolyte]]:' Creates double red, is slightly tanky. * 'Ambamby: Whilst a slightly dead draw, it will kill anything that attacks it a good portion of the time. Blue * [[Snowskateer|'Snowskateer']]:' Can be used to chump-block, can sometimes cause a 2-for-1. * [[Sylrath|'Sylrath]]:' Draws a card when played, replacing itself. * [[Glaciem Mage|'Glaciem Mage]]:''' Use to keep all your other blue cards safe from damage, allowing them to generate more icons. '''White Be noted that white is different than the other icon types, as you generate 2 of it each turn. You need less white ramp than coloured ramp, and most decks should try to spend more coloured than white icons. * Stud: Generate 2 white for free. * Mag: Generate 2 white for 1 red, is also good for its cost. Also generates it for your opponents, so be careful! * Recruiter of the Titans: Generates natural white, creates cards that can be sacrificed for white or used in a pinch. Note that cards generally cost 3-4 total icons before they're considered not cheap. Mistake the Second: Play cards as late as possible Let's look at the card Divine Favor: Divine Favor is a very powerful and very multifaceted card; It has a lot of uses in different scenarios. However, in all of its uses, it should be played as late as possible. What do I mean by this? Assume your opponent has only NobleDragon out. You have no fighters; the dragon killed them all. You play some fighters, hoping to use divine favor. This is a perfectly good play, however: When do you play divine favor? The turn you play the creatures, or the turn after? The correct answer is the turn after, because it gives your opponent no time to react. Assume you play some fighters, then divine favor them. It then goes to their turn; In playing it a turn early, you have given them a turn to react and prevent their nobledragon from dying. The opponent is playing blue. Blue's best trait is its ability to mess up almost plan if they are given time to. Here is just a short list of cards blue could play to horribly mess up your plan to use divine favor to kill NobleDragon: Bloated, Lord Tethamet, GodlySinha, Korblox Deathkeeper, IcyTea, Megalodon. By playing divine favor the same turn you're about to ram a creature into NobleDragon, you completely remove their ability to play these cards. Also, if they do '''react to your playing of creatures by use some controlling effect to destroy the creatures you play, At least you still have your favor, so you can try again. There is a second reason to play cards as late as possible, and that is Information. Information will be explained in the next mistake, but if you use a card too early, you announce what you're going to do to the Mistake the Third: Information is a resource; Use it as much as possible, give it away as little as possible There are five big resources in the game: Fighters, Icons, Life, Cards, and Information. Information is the second-least important of the five resources (Life is the least), but is still a key aspect of the game. Information is also gained and lost differently to other resources. Whenever you do '''anything, '''you give information to your opponent. Information can be used to properly predict what the opponent is going to do, allowing you to react to it For example: Your opponent plays Sylrath. It is likely he is playing a blue deck, or a deck that wants to draw cards quickly. React accordingly; Save your Ninja Elites. Your opponent plays Sylrath, then SharpTH. You now know his deck is monoblue goodstuff. React accordingly; use your high-power removal only on the big things, play smaller things to bait out the Korblox Archers. Your opponent doesn't play anything for a few turns. It's likely he is saving for something big. Conserve icons so you can play Fallen Guardian or Divine Favor to counter it immediately. Your opponent says "Aw, man, I have a bad hand". Rush your opponent before they can properly recover from their bad hand. Information is a resource veterans are more adept at exploiting than new players We would be here forever if we went on about how to properly know how to exploit it, as that requires an understanding of the game's meta and cards decks are likely to have. Instead, here is a really quick tip on how to prevent excess information. Whenever you talk, do it in a neutral tone, and try not to bring attention to any card that is unnecessary. Instead of saying "Damn, I don't have an answer to WishNite.", say "Wishnite's good." And '''NEVER comment on your opening hand, be it good, bad, mediocre, interesting, mundane, or wishing paris mulligan was in the game. And one more thing:' Don't lie about what's in your deck or hand unless your opponent is gullible. Misinformation gives your opponent more information than honesty. It simply doesn't work. We will see through your lie, and sometimes even use that lie to figure out your hand, your draws, and your entire game plan.' (Lying and bluffing in this game is perfectly ethical and acceptable, but it's not a good idea.) Mistake the Fourth: Life is a resource. Use it! Your start the game at 5000 life. There are two states as far as life goes: 0 life, and above 0 life. As long as you have above 0 life, you will very rarely be in danger of losing (Other than red decks). Now, that's not to say you should recklessly shred your life, but it means you shouldn't be scared to lose it. If it means drawing cards with Valletta, Smashing a creature with ZacAttackk, or setting up the icons to wipe the field with Thunder Bolt, it's better to prepare those whites in and lose a little life whilst your opponent's still setting up, as opposed to trying to wipe them when they're already set up. New players often try to protect any shred of life at all costs. This is sometimes good, but not always; It's a better idea to apply context. If you're only losing 200 life a turn, and you have some really big hitter like WishNite in your hand, feel free to take 600 and play it. If you're losing lots of life a turn, it'd be a better idea to defend yourself. This is why Nexx is still an amazing card, despite it making you lose 40% of your life. Mistake the Fifth: Don't play too many cards at once Overextension is the idea of playing more cards than is necessary to give you board advantage. This is bad, because it means your opponent can then use a single card to destroy more of your fighters. Some cards, such as Luck o' The Lobsters, or Grimclaw the Unholy, are specifically designed to anger people who overextend. There are two ways to calculate overextension: 1) If your deck is more aggro, cheap-cards based, you want to have 1500 power on the board at all times and no more. 2) If your deck is more high-quality, high-power cards based, you want to have 3 or less fighters no the board at all times. By this same logic, spamming cards is rarely a good idea because it creates overextension. This means don't whine when your opponent spams cards; it's not a viable technique, and you should feel bad for losing to bad decks. e.e Mistake the Sixth: Soft Removal is your friend Let's have a look at the card The Stalker. The Stalker, at first glance, looks too powerful. It costs 10 red, but with cards like Split Ego, that's not an issue at all. It boardwipes every turn. However, there are thousands of ways to deal with the stalker, and whilst it's powerful, it's not spine-breaking if your deck is well-built. The stalker is a card that demands removal. '''This means that, in order to kill it without losing card advantage, you need to use removal. Fortunately, removal is everywhere. Different cards excel at removing different problems. There are two kinds of removal: Soft removal, and hard removal. Hard Removal will kill the majority of all cards in the game, whilst Soft Removal won't. You could call Hard and Soft removal Unconditional Removal and Conditional Removal. Let's list all the main types of removal, giving at least one example: * '''Direct Damage: Cards that deal damage to another when they enter play. Sometimes, these cards have addition effects. Glaecium is the king of these types of cards. Direct damage is good against low-HP fighters, but bad against high-HP ones. * Haste: '''An offshoot of cards that deal damage when played are cards that attack when summoned. These perform the same task, but in different ways. Korblox Archmage is the best example of such a card. * '''Direct Reduction: Cards that reduce the power of a fighter to 0 or at least really close. Korblox Archer excels in this category. These cards can shut down really heavy hitters, like Ostrichsized, but don't negate their effects. * AoE: Cards that do their effect to every creature or every enemy creature. Ninja Elite and Eye of Overseer are the typical examples. AoE is good against swarms, bad against single targets. * Health/Power Swapping: An effect that'll instantly kill fighters with 0 HP, and turn giant walls into glass cannons, killable and killing anything. Yoshius is well-known for how absurdly good it is at this effect. Good at killing walls, bad at killing anything with good health and power. * Hard Removal: See the next mistake. Note that locking is NOT removal unless it's Blue Eyes Indigo Dragon or the Hideaki Infinite Stun Lock; it just delays the problem. It's good to play a lot of removal. Soft removal is cheaper and more common than hard removal, allowing you to pack your deck with it. Mistake the Seventh: Hard Removal is your good friend Look at Thunder Bolt. Thunder Bolt is one of the Seven Hardwipes; cards that will destroy absolutely every card in play. The hardwipes are as follows: Thunder Bolt, Luck o' The Lobsters, Meeboid Titano (2 copies), Mass Epidemic, Divine Favour (When combined with something else, 2 copies.) Hardwipes are just a subset of Hard Removal. Hard removal is very rare and very expensive. There are four non-wipe hard removal cards: Soul Release, Nenjas, Razuatix, Mimic. Nenjas is bad. Soul Release and Razua certainly aren't. My point is, most pros don't even flinch at stalkers, because they have so much removal to deal with it. Mistake the Eighth: Bowl of Greed is your best friend Just play it. Seriously. Category:About The Game